In December 2021, Chinese company, Huawei, offered Oxford University students £15,000 ($AU 28,500) to see if they could 'solve' "challenges relating to the surveillance and tracking of devices and their users". Huawei actually called it a 'hackathon'.

The request was passed on to data science students by the university's career services section. When asked about the appropriateness of this offer, they replied that they offered an 'impartial service'. It was up to students to decide if they wanted to take it up!

This offer comes from a company, banned in the UK - and Australia - for cyber security reasons and its close links to the Chinese Communist Party; one which brazenly trawls for information in Western countries with few or no questions asked.

The author reporting this, Ian Williams, also reveals Chinese hackers penetrating a US oil company's data by infecting the online menu of the local Chinese restaurant's online menu used by the company's systems engineers for their takeaways.

Chinese hacking of the West is "breathtaking". The loss of American intellectual and industrial property, for instance, is described as "the greatest transfer of wealth in history".

Beijing's work with criminal gangs is affecting "thousands of companies and public sector organisations worldwide" - including Australia.

I'm not sure what can be done about hackers who
are so computer literate and can get around and into
anything. I'm not that familiar with ultra-safe
security devices )and how safe they really are?) that
can be put in place. How safe are our national security
bases and information - not only the information on
business organisational computers?

If they can hack information - then surely there must
be ways and means to protect it?

So ttbn is at it again: talking about subjects that he has no idea about and has not spent the slightest time to research.

The word "hack" to a computer programmer and to the general public use to mean two different things. Traditionally (and until quite recently), to a programmer "hack" just means to write inventive computer code while to the general public it commonly is associated with breaking into computers. From the programer's original meaning of "hack" comes the meaning of the word "hackathon" (its a portmanteau of "hack" and "marathon")- which is a just an event where programmers come together, usually as a recreative social event, to program collectively and solve problems. They are extremely common in the open source software world. Indeed, if you have smartphone (either apple or android) then bits of its software are the result of hackathons (aka: hackfests, codefests).

Now, there is a particular type of public hackathon that concentrates on computer security where the programmers try to crack into computer systems. The computer systems they are targeting are typically donated by some tech firm. One of the most famous of these is the Pwn2Own* contest where the person/team to first successfully crack into a target system gets to keep it and/or some monetary reward. If I remember correctly over the years it has been sponsored by the likes of Google, Trendmirco, Microsoft and others.

-- continued below --

-- from above --

So what's the point of these public cracking contests? It is to IMPROVE computer security and INCREASE awareness of computer security issues generally. It achieves this because it:
1) brings to light existing currently exploitable security flaws which the responsible software companies can release updates for
2) it shames software companies for writing such rubbish software in the first place
3) brings to light current general trends and methods of crackers from the murky dark of the world of cracking
4) raises general public awareness about just how abysmal the current accepted standards for computer security/coding competency are and that the general public should be very, very, careful with their computers/technology (which they're not!)

[*: Pwn2Own basically translates to "crack this machine to own it"- this crazy style of writing is known as "leet speak" in coding circles. Indeed, leet-speak itself is often self-referentially written "1337 5p34k". What I use to find so amazing about this contest is how fast the systems were cracked- but these days I take it as a given that they will be cracked]

Anyone who purchases (myself included through no choice due to Aust unions sanctioned by greedy, selfish everyday employees devastating our industries) Chinese made goods, imports spyware & facilitates hacking !
Just think, why would China not take advantage of of others mindlessness to make themselves so depended on Chinese products ? I couldn't think of one reason why micro/nano chips would not be in every single device that can accept them.

All countries probably indulge in cyber espionage in the name of security. But Communist China is also a common thief, stealing commercial secrets worth billions to them, and saving billions more by not doing their own research. Communist China is a commercial imperialist; it doesn’t view trade and industry the way the West does. It should never have been allowed into the WTO, and would not have been without the greed of Western industrialists who were stupid enough to think trade was going to democratise and civilise a bunch of Communist homicidal maniacs.

What can be done about it? Not much, I'm afraid. Technology brings us as many problems as it does advantages.

I'm not going to bother wading through tab's great slab of over over-wordiness on how wrong I am. He has revealed his idiocy often enough. He is like Channel 72: old reruns on a loop.

TAB, a great piece of knowledge on computers. ttbn, seen China, hacking, and immediately jumped to the wrong conclusion. "Yep, those nasty Chinese are up to their old tricks again, HACKING!

BTW, my new Chinese made toaster I got from K-Mart has been hacked, its burning my toast. Can't trust the Chinese.

Indy, do you believe all that anti-worker guff you write. And to think it's hard working Australians who for years have been paying your aged welfare handout.

The Chinese trying to bribe the Oxford students explicitly referred to the exercise as a "hackathon". As I said, 44% of Australians are functionally illiterate, and 80% of them don't read or write very well. Obviously we have two of them on OLO, one of whom thinks that the more words he bangs out, the smarter he looks. Wrong! He clearly hasn't heard of 'KISS'. As for his cancel culture buddy - well, he is Paul 1405. Nothing more need be said.

FFS ttbn, you are a very pigheaded slow learner!

Hackathons like this are common. Many tech companies do them!! And as I've already explained their purpose is to IMPROVE computer security generally and not the opposite. The people who participate aren't being bribed! But rather they are being rewarded, in a competition setting, for finding security flaws. These flaws will then be fixed/removed by the companies who own the software containing them.

This *OBVIOUSLY* directly improves computer security!

Without these competitions to entice genius coders (these people are literally geniuses- they have extremely high IQs) to test/probe the software then these companies would be ignorant to the fact that their code has security issues. Also, the tactics/methods used by contestants to utilise these flaws are also studied so that companies can better understand why the flaws are flaws. This newly revealed knowledge can help the companies produce better software in the future.

Here's the pwn2own competition from last year: http://www.secwest.net/pwn2ownaustin2021 , it had $US500,000 in prizes to be won.
Yes, that number is correct- Half a million US dollars!!
That makes Hwuwei's $AU28,500 competition that you've mentioned mere peanuts in comparison.
This particular competition is a huge yearly event that many coders mark on their calendars. The organisers broadcast the event on the internet, and it is quite an attraction for them (the other lesser coders) to watch these creme-de-la-creme whiz-kids crack the into the systems. For them the entertainment they derive from it is very similar to how many "ocker" men are entertained by watching sport. Personally, I would find it as boring as batsh!te.

Well done TAB,

You've once more ran rings around the Old Fart on a subject he knows absolutely nothing about. I'm sure he spends his days pacing around his bed/sit repeating over and over to himself; "CHINA BAD!..CHINA BAD!" It's ignorant people like ttbn who cause wars in the world.

ttbn.

Cruise through the research below link, it may shine some light on the 80% apparent dumb of the population, and how they fit into the political landscape.

http://hiddentribes.us/

Dan

CHINA BAD.

http://appleinsider.com/articles/22/01/27/mandatory-olympics-ios-and-android-apps-are-spying-on-athletes-for-china

Why are we sending our kids to this authoritarian hell-hole?

Perhaps to prepare them for their future?

I wonder how many times the Uighurs will be mentioned on the Olympic telecasts?

tab,

You are just pigheaded without the learning bit. You are not merely slow; you are brain dead: a knuckle-dragging bully who is defending the Communist regime threatening Australia. Your real name is probably Wu Flungdung. I doubt that anyone reads beyond your first line (I don't), but keep it up. Your crap is a filler.

Paul,

Great grammar as usual: It's 'run', not 'ran'. And you call me ignorant! You can't distinguish the 'bad' - the CCP - from the country China and the Chinese people, most of whom hate the CCP because they are regularly murdered or otherwise persecuted by them. Have you ever been to China? Have you read about the history of China? Of course not.

Dan,

Thanks for the link. I've had a quick look and downloaded it for reading later.

We are now as divided as the US tribes. The divisions are down to the ratabags (see above) who, in all other things rubbish America as the 'great satan', but slavishly follow the crap and sedition of their extreme Left Yankee brethren

ttbn, why would you say that I'm a China shrill, when in another post one of your recent threads I've highlighted a very real threat that China poses? Specifically the threat outlined was that if China gains Taiwan, then it effectively controls the bulk of the global production of advanced computer chips. And it is an incredible power to have, because in the modern world chips are found in everything. Eg, without chips you can't build cars, houses, etc. (In case you've forgotten, this post of mine is the thread about your rubbish idea that we have to worry that China could hurt us by stopping its supply of drugs).

So obviously I'm not a China shrill. I will never defend the abuses that China inflicts on its people. But what I will do is correct you when, in your complete ignorance, make claims that are just plain wrong.

oops: in above "shrill" should obviously be "shill"

TAB,

Some very informative posts, makes for great reading. Good that someone is knowledgeable on this subject. Thanks, having avoided the uninformed ttbn rubbish.

Yes ttbn, a poor try at deflection, stick to the ran and run and not the topic which you obviously know nothing about.

'oops: in above "shrill" should obviously be "shill" '

No. You were right the first time; you are shrill; neither do you have what it takes to initiate a stream, preferring to lurk waiting for others to do so in order that you can bash out line after line of critical, whining BS without thinking for yourself. Even your new best friend, always looking for an ally to side with him, has the balls to initiate a discussion, not frightened how silly he might look. As with him, you have probably never been to China, read Chinese history, or have had regular contact with Chinese in Australia, with English skills better than both of yours, and first hand knowledge of what goes on in China.

Calling me ignorant is an old ruse that galahs like you think will hide your own stupidity. You have proved once and for all that you have nothing to offer, and there is point in looking at your nonsensical ravings.

While we ought to be concerned about hackers from China, Russia and non-government groups, the primary hacker we ought to be concerned about is our own government.

Here we are forced to provide electronic data to their various agencies, by-passing the need to break in. Increasingly its becoming virtually impossible to deal with government except electronically. Equally, where the government wants data but can't get it legally, they have the option to either change the law or ignore them and dare others to catch them. No consequence follows being caught out.

In NSW it remains the law that you have to sign in every time you enter a place of business. there is no longer any good reason for that imposition but they still want the data.

A revealing story came from one of the leaders of the Freedom Convoy in Canada. As he crossed the US-Canada border he ensuring that he had his proof of vaccination ready so as to not give any excuse to stop him passing. But when he got to the border guard he was told that wasn't necessary. While in the queue, the officials, from a distance, had already accessed his phone and found that he was indeed double vaccinated.

As you roam about, phone in hand, remember everything is being recorded and everything is available to the government. Its a level of potential surveillance that the Stasi would have killed for.

ttbn,
thinkabit has a very good point to make: the hackathon you're so concerned about was a perfectly innocent event that is unlikely to have anything to do with the Chinese government. Tech firms want to know about, and remedy, the security holes in their own products.

I was going to make a similar point, but he said it much better than I could. Hacking does indeed have different meanings. For example I've never hacked into anything, but I've hacked copies of things to make them do what I want them to do.

You wouldn't accuse people of supporting Trump just because they recognised Pissgate was fake news, so why the double standards towards those who acknowledge that despite the CCP's overall odiousness, there are some accusations that it's innocent of?

By criticising thinkabit without even properly reading what he says, you have revealed yourself to be a wilful ignoramus, preferring to keep yourself ignorant than to face the truth. Even on this board (where the general standard of intelligence is pretty low) your stupidity stands out far more because you keep highlighting it!

As for channel 72, it's one of the better free to air channels despite its lack of new content.

mhaze,

I get your point, but I don't think that our own government is as dangerous as the CCP when it comes to internet privacy; Communist China is our enemy. Australians are very keen on technological, and often use it to excess. There are still quiet a few people who don't use mobile phones, and those of us who do have to be responsible for ourselves.

I don't think the few naysayers and critics here have the faintest idea of the facts of the case in question or the extent of CCP cyber crime and grey war waging. And, most OLO posters have shown no interest. I'm not going go devote any more time to giving a couple of wackos an opportunity to sound off.

Seems like there is always a scapegoat, always the other ones that are hackers and instigators, never us and our allies, oh no, we are angles.

True JordyStepho, the trashing of Iranian centrifuges via the stuxnet virus/ worm immediately springs to mind.

ttbn, its not; "going go devote", its; "going to devote". GRAMMAR...people in glass houses... WHAT an old tosser!

It's a dreadful shame when some concrete jungle dwelling village idiot anarchists can constantly derail discussion with their moronic quibble !

Paul,

G & H are next to each next to each other on my keyboard. That's a typo, nothing like your poor literacy skills. You can't even manage to take the piss properly. Keep trying.

ttbn,

Yes so it is, but what does the letter "H" have to do with the words go and to? Did you want to say ho, ho, ho. BTW "W" is next to "Q" on the keyboard if that helps.

"next to each next to each" what kind of English is that? Are you on drugs? Do you have a stutter problem? People in glass houses....

One topic you called AUSTRALIA and another POST. Did you want to discuss AUSTRALIA POST?

Well Indy

ttbn was the first to have a go, only paying him back, but you won't see that. Oh, no longer with the racists slur for me, the "Concrete Jungle Bunny" you've added to it. Stick with the CJB much shorter.

Bunnies may be a little naive but they're cute & really don't deserve to be lowered to the same level as village idiot anarchists !

Hackathons aren't just a Chinese thing.
Google runs them as does many large tech companies.
- Don't kid yourself that the West doesn't do exactly the same stuff ttbn

Thanks ttbn for discussing an important issue- and think you have a good point in this case. Don't let others distract you from your point.

I'm also concerned at the thought of the CCP owned Huawei spending money to follow students around via their phones in the UK. Sounds like the CCP are pressure testing UK network security. Sometimes an internal attack is easier than external- this implies perhaps that the UK Departments are at least partially effective- perhaps. Maybe the UK Depts should sponsor a way for drones to track senior CCP.

Some hacking (and cracking) attempts are pretty easy to understand once they're explained. Thinkabit seems to know more than I- however- some have a vested interest in making it mysterious.

Often "variations on a theme" seem to enable crackers to crack a computer system exploiting "lists of known vulnerabilities"- especially on systems that have outdated patching.

There are several well documented cracks such as the Heartbleed crack
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heartbleed

Another interesting computer attack is the "little bobby tables/ database injection" hack.
http://bobby-tables.com/

The solution in this case is to check the database inputs before database entry

CM,

Thank you. There seem to be two main types of people these days: mental defectives whose only relief from their problems and failings is arguing and putting others down; and the reality-deniers who, like ostriches, bury their heads in the sand thinking that if they can't see they can't be seen. Fortunately, there's still a handful of people here to give hope while others rant and rave. I have recently fallen into the trap of arguing with idiots, but it seems to spur them on - it's just how they are. I will continue to do what I do - as everyone should - and refuse to "let others distract" me. Bugger them. Their cancel culture is nothing more than old fashioned cowardly bullying.

"As for channel 72, it's one of the better free to air channels despite its lack of new content."

Maybe its one of the better free to air channels BECAUSE of its lack of new content.

AC,

72, like all the other tack on channels from other networks, exists only to sell more advertising. Everything on them has been on the parent channel, repeated several times, than put on a permanent loop, repeated forever.

72 repeats not only its own stuff, but bandicoots much of its repeats from the ABC.

I used to watch ten year old episodes of Bargain Hunt before Tim Wannacott fell from grace, circa 2008. Then recent 'new' episodes were proudly introduced, made on 2012, no more Tim.

After a few episodes, the loop jerked back 15 years to a much younger Tim.

Anyone who says they watch 72 because they haven't seen the rubbish before has been a long time without a TV set.

The illegal hacking is pretty easy with systems like windows which
rely on operating system controlling where a program can access in memory.
My early experience was with a system that had a 4 bit hardware protection
so only a program allocated that 4 bit tag and operating in an area of
memory with that tag could access that data. Never heard of it being
hacked.
Still with modern machines, they seem to be open slather.
The common PC hardware would seem to be impossible to protect.
If you could get a routine into memory, so long as it did not rely
on the resident operating system away it could go.

Anyway with Linux, I do not run any virus etc etc software just run
as it comes, but just yesterday saw a report of a script that a normal
user can run that gives that user root privilages.
Probably will be fixed very soon, just noticed an update has arrived.
Never had to stop or repair illicit hacks so maybe I have been lucky.

Bazz was that a Burroughs machine that you're talking about? The B5000 series, which started production in the 1960, had a tagged memory architecture that sounds like the sort of thing you've mentioned. These machines were way ahead of their time. The tagged memory was basically a object capabilities security architecture at the hardware level.

The good news is that object capabilities are now making a comeback but not with tagged memory in hardware but with system software for standard off-the-shelf virtual memory management units and protection rings/domains found in modern processors. However, due to modern processors allowing attached devices direct access to memory (DMA and the like) you need to have the input/output virtualised as well (IOMMU). Most recent advanced chips have features like this today.

Here's the world's most highly assured system kernel (it's a micro-kernel) and it uses such an object capabilities architecture: http://sel4.systems/ . Unfortunately, at the moment the main-line of this kernel doesn't do multi-core, but there working on it. By-the-way: this kernel is made right here in Australia :)

There are various projects around the world that are working on developing a desktop operating system based on sel4.
There are also a few companies that are developing systems based on it that require extreme reliability and security (eg: self driving cars start ups, defense contractors, etc.)

Sel4 and its developing ecosystem is enticingly interesting from an investment point of view- that's why I'm interested in it.

Tab,

ttbn will run your last post through the good old Commadore 64 and if it pasts the test he'll give it the thumbs up, providing the Chinks aint hacking away at it with an axe.

Hi Paul,
Commodore 64, gee that was a while ago.
I must've been in Grade 2 or 3 when it came out, and into high school.
LOAD"*",8,1
- I think that was the command to run a program from the floppy disk drive.
Good old Boulder Dash, brings back memories of my childhood.

My pleasure ttbn. Cancel the cancellers by recursion. ;)

In reference to technical content by Bazz and Thinkabit.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tagged_architecture
"In contrast, program and data memory are indistinguishable in the von Neumann architecture"

http://www.encyclopedia.com/computing/dictionaries-thesauruses-pictures-and-press-releases/object-oriented-architecture
"object-oriented architecture An architecture in which everything (processes, files, I/O operations, etc.) is represented as an object. "

The first "computer" was invented by the Chinese 5,000 years ago, at the same time Europeans were grunting and throwing rocks at each other from their caves. This fantastic machine was called an ABACUS, no bugs, no hacks, no annoying pop ups. AND my ABACUS given to me 60 years ago is still working like new, like one from 5,000 years ago.

Out with family tonight to celebrate Chinese New Year, somewhere I don't know, I'll be hacking into that Mandarin Duck, my favorite, I hope there's no bugs in it!

Celebrate Waitangi Day tomorrow, a multi multi-cultural weekend.

For the nonbelievers, enjoy another course of meat pie and tomato sauce.

Think a Bit & Calem,
The m/c to which I referred was a LEOIII at Tubemakers in Botany.
The Master allocated the area for a program and set the 4 bit tag.
The result of course it could only run 15 programs at the same time including Master.
This at a time when it was the only commercial machine so capable.
It and its two predecessors were designed by those from Bletchly Park
and their trainees.
Of course the internet did not exist at that time but the machines
were network capable. I think Shell's LEOIII in Melbourne had data
transmission but I never visited that machine.

Hi Bazz,

On the "Scotty is a Physio" thread you said; "the greatest output of the most boring posts of all time" Well I think your last post here tops that! Given that we are forced to read every word in every post, under the pain of death.

BTW, I'm into model railways myself, what do you think of the Hornby M Gauge?

Morrison is a "physio" now, not a "physco". He thinks he is a ladies hairdresser, although his victim thought that his handling of her hair was a bit too vigorous, so perhaps he should stick to physiotherapy - anything but politics.

ttbn, I might have a problem seeing with my eyes, but you have a worse problem seeing with your brain

I typed; "ttbn is a genious", and the word predictor typed; "ttbn is a scumbag", can't fool this phone it thinks for itself.

What's worse than an Old Fart, an Old Old Fart. PEOPLE IN GLASS HOUSES....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LEO_(computer)

Built in 1961

Programmed using Intercode and CLEO (assembler- 35 bit and database)

According to the article one of the LEOIII innovations was Ferrite Core Memory rather than Mercury Delay Line (audio transducer) Memory not as good as capacitor memory but more persistent I suppose.

Another innovation was a solid state design presumably this means it used transistor switches on a die rather than switched vacuum tubes.

Seemingly it came in an era where solid state processors had been developed but not solid state memory- interesting how technology progresses at different rates.

Tubemakers of Australia- haven't heard their name for a while- I checked and it appears they merged into OneSteel. There's some great photos on Google of Tubemakers products.

Thanks Bazz for the reminiscing- were you the Intercode or the CLEO programmer (or both)?

The link with Bletchly Park is great.

Yes Armchair Critic- the Commodore 64- but the Amstrad was better ;) A bit of computer politics.

The IBM Online QM machine is interesting.

Bazz's link with Bletchly Park seems to highlight the importance of technology for national security.

Canem, I used both intercode which was a lower level language for
minor fiddles mainly for maintenance routines,
I wrote a few programs in Cleo which was a Cobal style language.
I was not employed as a programmer and just dabbled a bit to have a
spare parts program for tracking supplies.

The LEO III was the third version. I am fairly certain that there
was only one LEO I. A number of LEOIIs were built for companies like
Shell.
The LEOIII was all solid state, germanium transistors etc.
The only valves were in the tape drives, trying to remember their
name, American made.
At the same time I was working on a KDF6 at the Egg Marketing Board.
There was also a KDF9 at Sydney University.
The KDF stood for Kidsgrove in the UK where the factory was located.
Spent some time there learning the ropes.
My boss there worked with Alan Turing at Farnborough on ACE.
That was as close as I got to any of the famous people in computing.

Re Bletchly Park, Alan Turing and the Bombes used to break the Enigma
machine was the first breakthrough but the work of Bill Tutt was more
significant because he broke the Lorenz machine which was used in
a Radio Teleprinter system for High Command traffic and direct to Hitler.
Whereas the Enigma had three rotors, the Lorenz machine had twelve.
It indeed needed a computer to break into it.
So Tommy Fellows built Colossus.

When the war ended the key people went to Manchester and Cambridge Universities.
It was from there that the Lyons Corner Tea Shop company recruited the
people to build the first computer used to run a business.
There is an association of ex LEO Computer people involved with the
National Computer Museum.